Ladies and gentlemen, politicians, journalists, and all you well-meaning outsiders who love to talk about sex work without ever having done a single day of it,
Let me be very clear from the start: Laws about sex work should be written by listening to one group, and one group only — the sex workers themselves.
Not the feminists who’ve never met a whore that wasn’t in a textbook. Not the church people who think sex is dirty unless it’s for making babies. Not the politicians chasing votes by pretending to “protect women” while making their lives harder. And definitely not the Swedish-style busybodies who want to criminalize the client so they can feel noble without actually banning the woman’s right to her own body. That’s just cowardly wordplay.
I’ve been in this business for over thirty years. First in front of the camera, then behind it as a producer. I’ve worked with hundreds of sex workers — men, women, all kinds. I’ve helped Swedish and Norwegian girls pack their bags and move to Denmark so they could work safely and openly instead of hiding from the police and bad clients. I’ve spent my own money fighting bad laws, talking to politicians, and setting up practical solutions. So when I speak on this, it’s not theory. It’s reality.
Sex workers know what they need. They know what makes the job safer. They know which rules help them screen clients, pay their taxes like normal people, and avoid the real dangers — the violent ones, the traffickers, the exploiters. They know when a law actually protects them and when it just drives everything underground so the bad guys can operate in the dark.
In Denmark we’ve kept it relatively simple and open. Prostitution is legal. People who choose this work can do it without the state treating them like criminals. And guess what? The trafficking problem is tiny compared to places where you criminalize the buyers. Because here, most of the girls are here because they want to be. They come for the money, the freedom, the flexibility. Danes aren’t being forced into it out of desperation. Foreign workers come because it’s possible to do it legally and openly.
That’s what happens when you let reality guide the law instead of ideology.
If you want good laws, shut up for a minute and ask the actual sex workers: What do you need to stay safe? What payment problems are killing your business? What screening tools would help you avoid dangerous clients? Where does real exploitation happen, and how do we target that without punishing consensual adults?
Then write the damn laws based on those answers.
Everything else is just noise from people who get their knowledge from slogans and Netflix documentaries. They don’t live it. They don’t pay the price when the law backfires. The sex workers do.
So stop “saving” them against their will. Stop pretending that criminalizing clients is some clever middle ground — it’s not. It’s a gimmick. It’s a way to harass the industry while pretending you respect women’s autonomy.
Real respect means letting the people who actually do the work tell you what works and what doesn’t. Nothing more, nothing less.
If you’re not willing to listen to them first — and last — then stay out of it. Go legislate something you actually understand.
Thank you.